Saturday, September 28, 2013

Hawthorn finish the 2013 season with the premiership, and ranked #1, where it spent the majority of both this season and last season. The Hawks have clearly been the best-performed team over the past 24 months, and now have a trophy to show for it.

Fremantle finish the 2013 season as runner-up, and ranked #2 after a good finals series. It would be a much clearer #2 if not for its big Round 23 loss against St. Kilda. Unfortunately, the rankings system doesn't account for 'Ross Lyon resting half his team'.

Geelong and Collingwood dropped the most ranking points during the finals series, while Port Adelaide made the largest gain - obviously these are related developments.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem like a week goes by without an
article about the gender pay gap. I saw earlier this week that the Fair Work
Commission has engaged researchers to prepare an equal
remuneration report. Apart from discussing the concept of undervaluation
(of labour), part of the intended scope of this report is to identify the
usefulness of the various materials parties could bring to equal remunerations
proceedings, and direct parties to key resources which may be relevant to an
equal remuneration case. This report is intended to build on previous research
for the Commission on this topic.

This all sounds pretty useful. As I’ve said before,
determining whether or not specific groups of women and men are ‘undervalued’
in terms of their remuneration is not easy. This research will hopefully have a
significant impact in terms of giving parties a base of knowledge and evidence
to draw upon for future equal remuneration cases.Regardless of what decisions are made for
such cases in future, this should help in strengthening the claims that
underlie such decisions.

What this report will probably not do though is expand the
set of resources that are available. In the short-term, that is primarily being
left to the Commission’s Australian Workplace Relations Survey. As I said last
time I wrote on this topic, I’m not sure that as much of the Commission’s
resources are specifically going towards expanding the resources relating to
pay equity as originally envisioned by the (former) Government. However, in terms
of better using the available information, this latest equal remuneration
report looks like it will make a positive contribution.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Next week, I’m attending my first AFL Grand Final in twenty
years, and while I’m pretty jazzed that Hunters and Collectors will be playing,
I wonder if there is a bit more that the AFL could do. Why not celebrate
football’s biggest day through performances that recount this season’s
highlights (or lowlights)? I’d happily skip some beers on Swan St before the
game for this line-up.

Patrick Karnezis and
the Yeos from the Brisbane Lions – ‘We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place’

Sample lyric: We’ve gotta get out of this place/If it’s the
first thing we ever do/We’ve gotta get out of this place/Boys there’s a senior
coach for me and you

D-Mar (Dustin Martin) –
‘Take On Me’

Sample lyric: Carr’s talking away/I don’t know what I’m to
say/I’m signing anyway/I need another week of time though/Get on the plane/We’re
still looking for 600k/Take on me

Sample lyrics: Could it be, could it be that you’re joking
with me/And you can’t really be with the Dees?/Oh yippee, oh yippee, now you’re
talking to me/Please don’t let it be wait and see/Roosy, Roosy, Roosy, Roosy

‘Slow’ Eddie McGuire –
(to the tune to Meatloaf’s ‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth’) ‘How Did
Those Words Come Out Of My Mouth?’

Sample lyric: How did those words come out of my mouth?/I
must be able to blame it on Luke Darcy/Oh God those words came out of my
mouth/What was I on/When I made that ‘joke’ ‘bout Goodes and King Kong?

Why I Bought It: It
had ten per cent to do with that I’ve liked Murray’s beers in the past. Five
per cent to do that I like stout. And eighty-five per cent to do with the
bottle having a Catwoman-like figure in a leather suit.

Taste: Despite
its 10.0% ABV I don’t remember it tasting it any more alcoholic than your usual
stout. But at 10.0% ABV, perhaps the key words here are ‘don’t remember’.

What I did while
drinking it: Take a picture of the bottle, and posted it on Facebook so
that I could let all my beer-drinking friends know I was drinking ‘Catwoman
stout’ and they weren’t.

What I did after
drinking it: Played ‘The Walking Dead’ video game, which I reviewed
here earlier this week. When the zombie apocalypse comes, stout is what
will get the human race through.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

‘The
Walking Dead’ has been one of the most talked about video games over the past
couple of years, as evidenced by the fact that I had actually heard of it. It
consists of five interconnected episodes in which you take the character of Lee
Everett, a convicted criminal, as he tries to survive in another zombie
apocalypse. For a zombie game there is actually little action, and for an
adventure game there are relatively few puzzles; much of the game consists of
event scenes and conversations, some of which you have two or three options for
choosing what Lee will say. And therein lies the game’s hook – through the
words you say and the choices you make, you can influence how the story
unfolds. Other characters will react differently, or even live and die, by what
you choose to do at each point. It does really feel like watching a TV show in
which you get to ‘be’ the main character.

For
a shit gamer like me, this style of game is irresistible. Compared to most
other games, fighting off the bad guys is a relatively simple task. Jumping
across buildings and manoeuvring along ledges requires just a click on a
circle, or tapping away on a single key. There are even huge chunks of the game
in which I don’t have to make any actions at all. Never in my experience in the
gaming world has my lack of dexterity and accuracy in pressing buttons been
less punished.But ah… isn’t there the stress of being able to quickly make
the right decisions so as to get the best possible outcome for yourself and
your group of survivors? While it is indeed true that watching the timer run
down while I try to figure out what the hell I’m going to say did increase the
heart rate a little the beauty for me of ‘The Walking Dead’ is that not only
does it not punish you if you are a shit gamer, it does not punish you if you
are a shit decision maker either (or if you can’t make any decision). The
decisions you make will affect the details of the story, but not its general
path; regardless of what you do or fail to do you basically end up in the same
place.

All
of this may sound a bit boring to those who like to have a bit of agency in
their gaming, but to me ‘The Walking Dead’ is brilliant. Like the comic and TV
show, watching these characters try to survive is absorbing, but you are even
more invested in what happens because you feel like part of the group. Actions
can have surprising consequences, and you will not know which seemingly innocuous
decisions in early episodes will come back to (literally) bite you or your
comrades later on. Also, when the whole game takes about ten hours to play,
even the worst gamer can feel like an arcade superstar. And even with a zombie apocalypse, there was
still less death than when I play Super Mario Bros.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

AFL media and fans make a big deal out of just ‘sneaking’ into
the final eight, and out of just missing out on the final eight as well. In
terms of a team’s chances of winning the premiership, just making the final
eight has, empirically, next to no benefit – no team has won the premiership from
eighth spot since the final eight began in 1994, nor from seventh, nor from
sixth. A final for eighth does bring extra revenue of course, though
historically only one or two weeks’ worth.

However, some might think there are the lasting
benefits of having played a finals match in terms of helping the team win games
in subsequent seasons. As a data-based football fan, and not a narrative-based
one, my prior belief is that this is a load of baloney, but what do the numbers
actually say? Below are the winning percentages of the teams that finished
eighth and ninth in every season since 1994 over each of the next three home
and away seasons (click to enlarge).

Not that surprisingly, the average home and away winning
percentages for teams that finish eighth and ninth over each of the next three
seasons are pretty close to 50 per cent. Some teams in the middle of the ladder
go up in subsequent seasons, some go down. For example, Brisbane finished
eighth in 1997 and finished last the next season, while Essendon finished
eighth in 1998 and won the minor premiership the next season. It also won the
premiership the year after – the only team since 1994 to finish eighth or ninth
to have done so within the next three years.

(Strangely, while every AFL fan is familiar with Richmond
having finished ninth several times – six in total – no one really remembers
that Essendon has finished eighth almost as many times – five in total – over the
same period. More evidence that humans might be psychologically wired to remember
losses suffered rather than benefits gained.)

Looking at the averages, eighth placed teams have done a
little better on average than ninth placed teams in each of the next three
years. But the differences in average winning percentages are not significant.

In comparison, and not surprisingly, the
difference in average winning percentages in the next season of teams that
finish first and last is significant – that is, teams that are really good one season
are typically really good in the next season (though usually not quite as good),
and teams that are really bad one season are typically
really bad in the next season (though usually not quite as bad). The difference
is significant after two seasons as well, but the teams are, on average,
getting closer. By three seasons out, the averages are getting towards 50 per
cent for these teams as well.

Therefore,
the main benefit of ‘sneaking’ into the finals seems to be the extra revenue
from playing one or two finals matches, and perhaps the psychological joy from
being counted amongst the finals teams (though that is soon followed by the
disappointment of being ousted). Or perhaps more correctly - given the way that
humans might be wired - perhaps a main benefit of sneaking into the finals is avoiding
the psychological anguish of just missing out.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

As
Stan Smith from ‘American Dad’ once said, MMJ’s singer Jim James’ ‘voice makes
Enya sound like a Russian couple arguing at the bowling alley’. Strangely
enough though, that episode did not include this track from their album ‘Z’,
which has probably his sweetest, most sky-floatingist vocal performance that
I’ve heard from the beardy one to date.

This track came to my attention in the past month
when, apparently five years after it was released, I saw the trippy, mashed-up
video clip. The image of one member wailing ‘How hard must I try?’ morphing
into the face of another member matter-of-factly grumbling/croaking
(‘groaking’?) the same line is the one that stuck with me the most.

In my post-Spotify era I’m still working my way
through too many old albums to listen to too much new stuff, but I have been
listening a bit to Kurt Vile’s new one, which is actually one of the few times
to date I’ve taken notice of Spotify’s recommendations. This is actually
atypical of KV’s new album in that, rather than being long and daydreamy it’s a
modest five minutes long and rocky, which may help it stick out. The yelps at
the end probably help it stick out too.

No, it did not take me until the past month to
hear this, but it took me until the past month to rediscover it. I never bought
the album – ‘All Is Dream’ that this was taken from, which is weird given how
much I liked the Rev’s previous album ‘Deserter’s Songs’ … well, not that weird
really, I was studying and had to conserve funds. Now, with unlimited music at
my disposal, and twelve years more of life etched on my face, I can appreciate
more fully Jonathan Donahue’s sighing ‘But you want it all …’

5.Razorlight/Slipway
Fires – Razorlight

Johnny Borrell is, by all reports, a bit of a
berk, but perhaps fortunately most of his berkness bypassed me in the
mid-2000s. I listened to Razorlight’s first album, ‘Up All Night’ a few years
back, and even picked up a half-broken copy from a Borders’ firesale, but I
thought that was probably going to be all the Borrell I would ever need. Then I
listened to Razorlight’s self-titled second album, and thought it was …
(whisper now) … really quite good. But that’s not the true horror; I then gave Razorlight’s
much-panned third album ‘Slipway Fires’ a go, just out of curiosity, and (oh
no) I liked that as well. Yes, I may well have become a Razorlight fan half a
decade after I have any excuse to. My Dirty Projectors CD will look upon me in
shame.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Below are my picks for the AFL All-Australian team
for 2013. There’s no use pretending these selections are based on an
assessment from my watching all of the season’s games, or even a significant
proportion of them (I don’t). My main inputs for these selections are reading
who everyone else would select, seeing the SuperCoach scores, and my attempts
to guess the psychology of the All-Australian selectors. On that score, I think
the selectors will tend to favour players who have performed at a high level
for the past two or three seasons – essentially if you’ve been in the frame
before you’re a good chance to get selected this time – with Chad Wingard and
arguably Will Minson and Lindsay Thomas the only picks I have made that have
come out of relatively nowhere this season.

Also this year, I have put together the 2013 AFL
‘Freakin’ Awesome!’ team. The idea is that this is what the All-Australian team
might look like if it was selected by a bunch of 12 year olds, with the only
criterion for selection being that the player be ‘freakin’ awesome!’ (Would 12
year olds use the phrase ‘freakin’ awesome’? Probably not … I shouldn’t
overestimate my insight into the psychology of today’s kids here.) Basically,
unlike the actual All-Australian team, and with a few exceptions, your chances
of being selected for this team once you pass the age of 24 become somewhat slimmer.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Throughout 2013 St. Kilda has been highlighted so much in the ‘Falling
Down’ section that it seems only fair to give them a run here after gaining
over nine ranking points on the weekend. The Saints moved up to fourteenth spot
after thrashing the depleted Dockers to put a positive end on a dismal year.
The largest gain over 2013 though belongs to North Melbourne, who gained 24
ranking points and almost finished the home and away season in third spot,
despite missing the actual AFL finals.

FALLING DOWN

The Fremantle Dockers fall down to their lowest placing of the year
after getting thrashed by the lowly Saints. Dockers’ fans (and others) would no
doubt note that their team rested twelve players on the weekend, and therefore
their drop in ranking points this week doesn’t reflect the true quality of
their team. And they may well be right. However, a similar thing might have
been said when Collingwood
switched places with Geelong after getting touched up the Cats in the final
home and away round in 2011, and that proved to be prescient in terms of
the results of the subsequent finals series. Meanwhile, the Dockers’ cross-town
rivals, the Eagles drop another three ranking spots, and end up with the
largest decline in ranking points for the season.

ALSO OF NOTE

After very little happened last week in the Power Rankings, nearly early
team moved places this week, with the exceptions being the two teams, Melbourne
and GWS, who have not moved at all in 2013.

Below is a summary of where each team has been during the course of the
2013 season (click to enlarge). As you can see, most of the movement was in the middle of the pack,
in positions 5-10.

And
here is a summary of where each team spent the most time in the rankings this
season, along with their highest and lowest rankings, and the variation
(standard deviation) in their positions.